Pathway for Successful Breastfeeding
What to Expect in the First 24 Hours
- Keep your baby skin-to-skin as much as possible.
- Room-in with your baby. Keep baby with you as much as possible.
- Learn your baby’s feeding cues: lip smacking, hands to mouth, turning the head toward your breast, opening the mouth, licking the lips.
- Offer your baby your breast every 3 - 4 hours. Baby may be very sleepy on day one, or very fussy and “cluster feed.”
- Learn a comfortable position for breastfeeding.
- Learn how to get the baby to latch on properly (nose to nipple, wide open mouth).
- Learn how to do breast massage and manual expression. Doing this 5 - 6 times a day will increase your milk supply.
- Baby should have 1 wet and/or 1 dirty diaper on first day.
- Avoid use of pacifiers, bottles, or breastmilk substitutes unless medically indicated.
What to Expect in the Next 24 – 96 Hours
- Baby should feed 8 - 12 times in 24 hours.
- Cluster feeding (fussiness and wanting to feed every 20 - 30 minutes) is normal, especially at night.
- Continue to do skin-to-skin with your baby.
- Continue to room-in.
- Continue to practice proper positioning and latch. Ask for help if needed. Your nurse will observe a feeding at least every 8 hours.
- Continue to do manual expression a few times a day.
- Baby should have more wet and dirty diapers.
- A small amount of weight loss is expected and normal.